New York prepares for snow -- in its own way

Despite the blizzard predications that has the public schools already deciding to be closed tomorrow, the skies were blue on Washington Square Park when I was taking a break from class this afternoon. . . . It was nonetheless still pretty cold to be stripping off your shirts like these two guys on the left playing hacky-sack!

A little bit ago, I was trying to decide whether to declare my own snow day (and head home for Pennsylvania now instead of tomorrow evening) when NYU's vp of public safety sent out an email that said in part:

The National Weather Service has issued a winter storm warning for the New York
City area; snow and high winds are expected to begin late tonight.

I have been at NYU for 13 years; because of how many members of our community
live nearby and because our transit system seldom fails us, we have rarely had
to close.

Accordingly, at this point, NYU expects to be open tomorrow, Wednesday, February
10; all classes and activities are to proceed as scheduled, all personnel are to
report as scheduled.

And, so, I've decided to risk staying!

+++++++++++++

I've heard a lot on the news about supermarkets having long lines of people trying to stock up amid all the storm predictions, but I was still surprised this afternoon to see a line of people lined up _outside_ a supermarket waiting to get in! (And with a security guard policing the line.)

It was the Trader Joe's on 14th Street, and, for all I know, they have such lines even when there is no snow -- it's such an amazing thing to have such a wonderful, and cheap, food store like Trader Joe's in Manhattan, something that was all but unimaginable in most of my New York years of the 80s and 90s.

I went past some of my old haunts in the East Village during a short break I took this afternoon. Some of the places I loved the most are gone, especially the Kosher meat restaurants like the 2nd Avenue Deli, Rectangles and the Village Crown. There's a lot more Japanese restaurants and even a well-stocked, but cramped, Japanese food market that can only be accessed via an elevator (it's on the second floor above the St. Mark's Bookshop).

Overall, it's a much more hospitable Manhattan than the one of my young adulthood. . . . If only you could get into Trader Joe's without having to wait in line!